


The Chain of Command

by sqbr



Series: Sal Shepard [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Fanfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 01:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sqbr/pseuds/sqbr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of moments between the crew of the Normandy during Mass Effect 1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Kaidan's back itched all the way back to the Mako. He could feel the cultists watching them, staring at their Alliance uniforms and murmuring amongst themselves about how the Alliance had abandoned them, how non-biotics were the enemy. 

_I'm a biotic too_ he thought grumpily, but he doubted it would count for much if things came to the crunch. 

"I hope you know what you're doing, Commander" he said softly. 

"The butcher of Torfan can't show a little compassion?" replied Shepard.

"Of course, I just...I'm not sure we can trust this 'Father' Kyle."

Ashley snorted under her breath and shifted her gun. Kaidan got the feeling the self styled religious guru bothered her on theological grounds as much as practical ones, but she was too good of a soldier to question her commanding officer in front of the enemy.

The mention of the cult leader's name caused a passing biotic to pause mid shuffle and stare at Kaidan with wide, glazed eyes. He gave a noncommital smile, and the biotic blinked and moved on. This place was _creepy_ , the utilitarian prefab interior decorated only with blank metal boxes and guns, all the inhabitants dressed in similarly drab outfits and wandering around aimlessly like they were in a daze. He was reminded of the brainwashed colonists on Feros, except those people had had more personality. 

"Look," said Shepard, leaning close to him and lowering her voice. Every now and then her armoured hips would brush up against his leg and he was briefly distracted from their situation. "I'm a pretty good negotiator, but these fanatics are too far gone for diplomacy. If I shoot Kyle, or cause a scene, we'd have to fight our way through a whole building full of angry biotics. I don't know about you but I'd rather not have to do that. And what's the worst that can happen? He tries to escape, we shoot him down. He blows up the building, the problem's taken care of _and_ we didn't get our hands dirty. In the unlikely event that this freak actually keeps his word, we've saved the day and look like negotiating geniuses. It's win win."

"Wow," he said, "that _is_...compassionate of you."

She raised her eyebrows and he acknowledged her point with a brief breath of a laugh. They didn't even need to have the conversation out loud any more. Shepard wasn't the heartless murderer her reputation said she was, but even when she was doing good she always kept an eye on the practicalities, including her career. Whenever Kaidan argued with her decisions Shepard said she was just being _realistic_ , but sometimes he was inclined to see it more as callousness. This was the first time it had made her _more_ compassionate than him, in effect if not intent. And as Shepard would point out, it was the effect of your actions that really counted.

After what felt like an eternity they finally made it back outside, the dead dusty plains of the moon's surface an inviting paradise after the oppressive atmosphere of the commune. The tension in Kaidan's shoulder's didn't entirely lift until he felt the wheels of the Mako thump down onto the Normandy's hangar floor.

Once Joker had checked that they were alright and headed back towards the cockpit Ashley let out a sigh of relief. "Well that was tense," she said. "Have to admit, I wasn't sure you'd made the right call, Commander, but looks like it's all going to work out. What is it with all these crazy biotics?" Kaidan narrowed his lips but didn't say anything. "Uh, no offence Lieutenant," she added. "I'm not saying all biotics are crazy, we just seem to be encountering the crazy ones a lot lately."

To other biotics, he was Alliance. To the Alliance, he was a biotic. Such is life. "There was, what, this and that hostage thing? That's only two," said Kaidan. "I might as well ask: What is it with all these homicidal colonists?"

"What _about_ them?" asked Shepard.

"Uh...no offense ma'am, I was just..." Smooth, Alenko.

Shepard tilted her head and just _looked_ at him, her deep brown eyes cool and steely. Then she winked. 

Ashley laughed. "Yeah, you tell him, Commander." She stood up and opened the door, jumping out to land lightly on her feet. "I'm gonna go get back to my duties, if that's alright." 

"Dismissed," said Shepard. Ashley gave a cheerful salute and headed off. 

Ash kept making a point of giving him and Shepard the chance to be alone, it was really sweet. Of course any time the two of them spent alone was an exercise in frustration, since neither of them was quite willing to cross the line from flirtation to out and out fraternisation. But Kaidan found these private moments with Shepard precious all the same.

Once Ash was out of sight Shepard turned in her seat back towards Kaidan. She tilted her head at him again, but now her eyes were more sultry than steely. He looked back, and her darkened lips lifted into a small, private smile just for him. 

"Have I ever mentioned how much I like it when you call me Ma'am?" she said.

"Uh, no you haven't. _Ma'am_."

Her smile broadened and she shifted closer so that their legs were rubbing against each other. Kaidan lifted a hand towards her shoulder, feeling both brave and foolish. The contact was like an electric shock, he couldn't feel anything through the combination of gloves and armour, but just knowing that they were almost touching was enough to make his heart beat faster. Shepard's eyes flickered closed for just a second and then she held still, her eyes looking up into his as his hand shifted across the hard angles of her armour. 

As soldiers went Shepard was fairly...squishy, the muscles of her narrow shoulders covered in a soft layer of fat. And while she was a formidable marksman, her battle skills lay more in brains and accuracy than strength. But Shepard still radiated an aura of sheer power, and it left Kaidan honoured and baffled that such a powerful woman would let herself be vulnerable like this with him. His fingers ached to touch her, the angled brown skin of her jaw called to him from just beyond the edges of her armour. He thought about what it would feel like to take off his gloves and run his hands through the thick curls of her hair, down the gentle curves of her back (which he had not seen but had often imagined)

Shepard put her hand on his knee and slowly started to shift it upwards, never taking her eyes off his. The fabric of his armour was thinner than hers, and the pressure of her fingers was sweet and heady.

Kaidan took a ragged breath. "Shepard," he said. "Shepard, we should stop."

She stopped moving her hand and leaned against it, her breath hot against his skin. The pressure of her body weight was a deep, intoxicating pain. "Not a lot of people willing to say no to me, Lieutenant," she said.

All the blood was rushing from his brain. "Uh...no. No I'm sure there aren't. But...but we should still stop."

"Yes we should," she said. She shut her eyes and closed the final fingersbreadth between them, her lips gently brushing against his cheek. She sat back and released the pressure on his leg. "Not a lot of people are willing to say no to me, but you are."

He wondered if this was it, the point when the teeth behind all those rules about fraternisation really started to bite, and he had to choose between his career and his consent. But she was smiling. She placed her hand lightly on his chest. "If you weren't willing to say no, it wouldn't mean much when you say yes."

"Right," he said, weakly. "But, uh, just so you know, Shepard...it's not that I don't want...that I'm not..."

"I know, Kaidan," she said. "Me too." She rested her head on the back of the Mako's hard passenger chair and gave a small groan. "And eventually....once we've defeated Saren, and saved the galaxy, and filled in all the paperwork. _Eventually_ we won't have to worry about ethics, and the effect on our careers, and we can just..."

"Say yes."

"Yeah."


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn't that Ashley hated aliens. It was just that she didn't trust them. She had no doubt that there were lots of really nice aliens, total sweethearts who wouldn't hurt a fly and spent their days rescuing lost kittens and writing poetry about sunshine and rainbows. But the simple fact was that they weren't human. This didn't mean that they didn't have souls, or that they deserved to be treated badly, or that any human who made nice with them was a traitor to the human race. But it only stood to reason that an alien's loyalty was going to be to their own species, and that meant that when push came to shove they would at best put humanity's interests a distant second to their own.

Which wouldn't be a big deal if she was a...librarian, say, and all she had to worry about if she trusted aliens too much was having them return books past their due date or whatever. But she was a soldier, and this was a military vessel. Trusting the wrong people could get them all killed, maybe put the whole human race in danger. 

And yet here she was on an Alliance vessel, surrounded by top of the line human military technology, and there was a _turian_ messing about with the controls of their combat vehicle. Sure, Garrus seemed like an ok guy, but it still felt...wrong.

"You don't like it do you?"

She started and looked up. The krogan grinned at her, his mouth a stretch of lumpen teeth as wide as her head. "Don't like what?" she asked defensively. How had anyone so bulky snuck up on her? 

"That turian, poking about on the mako. Makes your teeth ache just to look at it. After all, it's not that long since your species were at war."

Damn, she thought, krogan were supposed to be _stupid_. Despite the two of them spending a lot of time around the same parts of the ship, she hadn't really spoken much to Wrex. She didn't tend to seek out the company of aliens, and he wasn't really the chatty sort. 

"Maybe you're just projecting," she said. "Didn't they pretty much wipe out your species?"

"That's how I know how you feel," said Wrex. "It makes my teeth ache too."

Ashley gave a reluctant smile of acknowledgment and shook her head ruefully. "You know we're being paranoid, right?" she said. "Garrus is a pretty straightforward guy, I really can't see him as a spy."

"That's not the point," said Wrex. "I didn't say I thought he was actually up to anything. I said he made my teeth hurt."

"...yeah," said Ashley. Garrus chose that moment to look up from whatever (entirely innocent) work he was doing on the mako. He saw Ashley and Wrex looking at him and blinked. Unable to help herself, Ashley laughed, and then waved away his confused expression with an apologetic smile. 

"Why do I get the feeling I'm missing something," said Garrus, his strange doubled voice filling the wide emptiness of the hold between them.

"Just a joke between us lesser species," called back Wrex. "Nothing your advanced mind would understand."

"...right," said Garrus, and went back to work.

The hold went quiet again, the only sounds the subtle hum of the engines and the occasional clank of Garrus's tinkering. "We're terrible," said Ashley. "The poor guy is just trying to help."

"Speak for yourself," said Wrex, picking up the Lancer V she'd just finished cleaning. "I just successfully infiltrated a human vessel and collected a bunch of intel about their rifles."

Ashley had a brief moment of horror before her brain caught up. "I'm pretty sure the Krogan know how to make rifles," she said.

"Well, we know how to buy them, which is just as good. But these are _human_ rifles. Makes them special."

"Damn right," said Ashley. "So keep your sneaky alien hands off them." Had she just insulted a _krogan_? She always had had a poor instinct for self preservation.

Wrex put down the gun and held up his stumpy little hands in mock fear, as if he couldn't squish her like a bug without even breaking a sweat. "Whatever you say," he said, "Wouldn't want to get on your _bad_ side." He gave a short rumbling laugh, she could feel the vibrations in her feet. He turned away, walking slowly towards the other end of the hold. "See you around, Williams," he said.

"See you around, Wrex," said Ashley, half to herself. 

Ashley didn't trust aliens. That didn't mean she couldn't like them.


	3. Chapter 3

One of the things Garrus liked about Shepard was her healthy disdain for protocol. She'd suck up to diplomats and her superiors when she had to, but if she had to break a few rules to catch a bad guy or cut down on wasted time then she would do it in a heartbeat with no regrets. She didn't expect any different from her team either: as long as they got the job done, and didn't cause too much trouble, she wasn't too concerned with petty details and formalities. After the suffocating red tape of C-Sec working under Shepard was like escaping from a stifling prison into the fresh clean air of freedom.

But there were times when he found her nonconformist attitude to command a little...disturbing.

Like when she was half sitting in his lap and peering at his face, the stink of human alcohol on her breath making his nasal passages itch. Whose idea had it been to have a party, again? And how had he managed to sit himself down on an isolated couch on the opposite end of the room from the drinks table? A drunk Commander Shepard was not something a man should have to face nearly sober, and digging through the supplied alcohol to find anything he could drink would require extracting himself, which could be difficult. She was surprisingly heavy, even if all the extra human padding made her leaning on him less uncomfortable than it might otherwise have been. He could have asked her to move, of course, but he couldn't quite motivate himself to do so.

"Garrus," said Shepard slowly, "has anyone ever told you you have a really weird looking head?"

"Not that I can remember," he said. "Though I _was_ a little sloppy with the face paint this morning."

She squinted at the blue lines framing his face. He doubted they meant anything to her, or anyone else on the ship for that matter, but he was still Vakarian, and some formalities did matter, even when nobody was around to notice. 

"I've got some spare lipstick if you want to touch it up...but I guess that'd kill you. Or make you blow up." She puffed out her cheeks and widened her eyes to demonstrate. He was reminded how _mobile_ human faces were. You'd think it would make them easier to read, but he mostly just found it distracting. "Plus it'd be a waste of good lipstick." She smiled to take the sting out of her words, and Garrus chuckled. 

"Anyway, your facepaint looks fine to me, I was talking about all the...uh..." She moved her hand towards his head and waved her fingers but didn't quite touch him. Then her slack jaw closed tight. "Wait, I'm being racist...speciesist. I'm sure your head is very attractive to other turians." She leaned closer and smiled, her lips thinning to show the flat plane of her smooth blunt teeth. "I bet turian girls are all _Oh Garrus, your spines are so..._ spiny." She put on a high pitched voice and batted her eyelashes, looking about as unlike a turian girl as it was possible to look. She was awfully close, he could see the little hairs on her face and the way her skin was criss crossed with faint lines and dotted with pores, everything twisted and puckered around the scar slashing across her cheek. Her eyes were _huge_ , deep black circles edged with white.

"Hi...Garrus, Commander." Garrus looked up, hoping for rescue, and was confronted with the subtle glare of Lieutenant Alenko, standing rod straight by the couch, a glint of fire in his usually mild eyes. Great, now he had to deal with Shepard's jealous...boyfriend, or whatever he was. Though all he'd seen himself was significant glances and subtle innuendo there was definitely _something_ going on with those two, and rumour on the Normandy was that it was pretty serious. 

Honestly, Garrus couldn't see what Shepard saw in him, there was nothing in particular wrong with Alenko but he was awfully...nice. Shepard was many things, but nice wasn't really one of them. She reminded him a bit of himself, or perhaps who he'd like to be. If they weren't different species...but. Well. They were. 

Shepard looked up. "Kaidan!" she said, her whole face softening like a flower opening in the sun. "Come sit with us! I haven't seen you all evening."

"Uh...thanks," said Kaidan. "But you know me, parties aren't really my thing. I just wanted to pop in and say hi. I'm about to go back to my quarters, and you seem kind of...busy."

"Aww...come on," she said. "Have a drink. We can go somewhere quieter if you'd like. It'll be fun." She batted her eyelashes again, and it was apparently more effective on humans than turians, because even Garrus could tell that Kaidan was torn.

"Uh...perhaps another time," he said. "But...yeah, it would be...fun to share a drink with you. Some place quiet." He leaned closer to her, his voice low, and they shared a look filled with promise. Garrus looked away to give them some privacy and sighed, wishing for beer.

"Ok I really do have to go," said Kaidan, after a long awkward moment. "Have fun, Commander. But, uh...not too much fun."

"Don't you trust me, Lieutenant?" asked Shepard, smiling. 

"Uh..." said Alenko, his eyes flicking briefly to Garrus, who in turn tried to exude "I have no interest in your human girlfriend" as hard as he possibly could. From what he'd seen on the Citadel humans could be very territorial about their mates, and while Alenko didn't seem the violent type Garrus still didn't want to get tangled up in whatever romantic drama was going on between him and Shepard. "Right. Well. Just have fun then. Night."

"Pleasant dreams," purred Shepard.

"Night," said Garrus dryly, and Kaidan paused then acknowledged him with a nod of the head and an awkward smile, before smiling more sincerely at Shepard and turning to leave.

Shepard watched him go, her back straight and eyes intent until the doors hissed closed behind him. "I could watch that ass all day," she said, then gave a long sigh and shifted to collapse, looselimbed, back onto the couch, one of her legs still on top of Garrus. 

"Does the turian military have rules about fraternisation?" she asked.

"The turian military has rules about everything," said Garrus. "Which doesn't stop it from happening."

"Right," said Shepard. She sighed again. "It stops me though," she said. "Unfortunately."

"That's not what it looked like from here," said Garrus. "Scuttlebutt on the ship says something different as well. It's not like you've ever let rules and regulations stop you before."

"Scuttlebutt says I have something going with _Liara_ ," said Shepard. "And what you've seen is all there is to see. Lots of flirting, no action. I'm all about breaking rules when I can get away with it, but the Alliance is pretty harsh on commanding officers who are seen as taking advantage. Plus it would just be...wrong. _Weird_. It's weird enough as it is."

"That makes sense," said Garrus, thinking of how he'd have felt if he'd been in a relationship with any of his commanding officers. His mind briefly tried to imagine what it would be like to sleep with Shepard before skidding around the idea as too weird to even contemplate. "Though in terms of consequences to your career...I doubt the council cares who you sleep with, as long as it's consensual. And even then..."

Shepard squinted at him and her lips twisted in disgust.

"Hey, I'm not saying I approve! Just...Spectres can get away with a _lot_ , as long as they get the job done. And you are _really good_ at getting things done." 

"Huh," she said, slowly. "I hadn't thought of it that way. Thanks." She smiled and stretched her arms over her head, then stood up, finally freeing Garrus. "Hey, do you want a beer? I'm thirsty."

Finally! "Just make sure it's the right type," he said. "Or...boom!" He mimicked her balloon face by expanding his mandibles. Shepard laughed.

"Aye, aye," she said, with a loose salute, and wandered off, weaving across the room with surprising grace. Perhaps she wasn't as drunk as she'd appeared to be. Shepard always was full of surprises.

* * *

The next morning Shepard was clearly hungover at the briefing, handing out assignments with more than her usual curtness, glaring balefully at the assembled officers with bloodshot eyes rimmed with shadows. 

The crew were mostly too hungover themselves to ask any questions, and since there wasn't much planned for the day the meeting was over quickly. Shepard walked slowly over towards Garrus and he waited as she limped with him towards the elevator. Maybe she _had_ been as drunk as she'd looked. 

"Garrus," she said. "Please tell me I didn't do anything stupid last night."

"Define stupid."

She scowled. "Anything that would make the junior staff look at me with amusement instead of respect," she said. "I remember talking to you and then...nothing. I need to know if I should quit the Alliance and join the Quarian foreign legion." 

He couldn't resist. "Well... you did sit on my lap." Her eyes widened in horror. "And then you started talking about how much you liked Lieutenant Alenko's ass..."

"Oh god," said Shepard, staring into nothingness through fingers splayed across her temples. "I am never drinking again."

The elevator hummed quietly.

"Sorry about sitting on your lap, I hope I didn't..." 

"No harm done, Shepard," he said. "Though you're heavier than you look."

"You calling me fat, turian?" 

"Uh..." Had he just horribly insulted her? 

Shepard gave him a bitter smile. "Half my insides are synthetics," she explained. "Had to get them replaced after I got burned up by the batarians. They work pretty good most of the time, but they're damn heavy." Well now he felt like a jerk. Maybe he should stop teasing her.

"I'm actually pretty sure noone else heard you talking about Major Alenko," he said. "I don't think you _really_ grabbed everyone's attention until you stood on a table and started ranting about the evils of cows. I'm not sure what a cow is, but you really seem to hate them."

Shepard gave a choking laugh and leaned against the wall of the elevator. "Man, the cow speech? I didn't drink _that_ much. Ok, I blame Chakwas. She put me on these new painkillers, I think they've screwed up my alcohol tolerance. I'm not usually that much of a lightweight, I swear."

"Whatever you say, Shepard." 

The elevator door opened onto the Normandy's hangar, dim lighting reflecting off long girders and walls full of weapons and tech. Garrus spent so much time here it was starting to feel like home, it was certainly more comfortable than the human shaped sleeping pods that were the closest thing he had to personal quarters. He noticed Tali talking with the requisitions officer, probably trying to find more tools for poking at the various strange tech they kept finding on their missions. He waved, and she waved back full of energy and cheer. Tali had of course spent the previous night's party sober as a judge, but had seemed to find everyone else's antics amusing. 

"Hello Garrus, Commander Shepard," she said brightly. Shepard winced and then gave a pained smile. 

"You two talk amongst yourselves if you like," she said. "I have to go talk to Adams." 

"Before you go," said Garrus "What _is_ a cow?" 

"Some kind of _food animal_ , I think," said Tali, making the concept of eating meat sound as alien as living in an environment suit seemed to him. 

"Yeah," said Shepard. "They're a kind of food animal. Produce milk too. We used to raise them on Mindoir for the boutique meat market before...back before everyone there died." She got a faraway look in her eyes. "Big stupid things with four legs and an attitude problem, that's cows. Scary as hell when you're a little kid and you're stuck in a field with them. Plus my parents used to make me help muck out the sheds when I'd rather have been hacking my omnitool. Or having my teeth pulled." She gave a self deprecating smile. "Hardly the worst thing in the world, but when I get drunk I just...like to rant about cows. No idea why."

Garrus was pretty sure she did know why, and so did he: because it was easier than ranting about slavers and survivor guilt and how it felt to lose everyone she'd grown up with. But he wasn't going to say it.

"They sound terrifying," said Garrus. "Worse than thresher maws."

"Oh yes, much worse," said Shepard. "If Saren ever adds cows to his army we're screwed."

Tali giggled. "Sorry," she said. "But I researched what cows look like on the extranet and it's amusing to imagine one holding a gun."

"Actually," said Shepard, "There's a song about that..."


End file.
